Transit Diary: A DC Councilmember shares how he got around during the National Week Without Driving

Transit Diaries is a series in which residents of Greater Washington track how they get around the region for a week, shedding light on what’s working well and not so well with our transportation system. Read past Transit Diaries.

My name is Charles Allen, and I serve on the DC Council as the Ward 6 Councilmember and Chairperson of the Committee on Transportation and the Environment. I’m thrilled to be joining hundreds of local and state elected officials to participate in this year’s National Week Without Driving (October 2 - 8). I know that driving has hugely negative impacts on the climate, human health, and our ability to enjoy public space as a community. This challenge is a great way to see how far the District has come in building alternative transit options, and to remind myself how much more work we still have before us to build an inclusive, sustainable transportation network.

For background, I live in Capitol Hill near Union Station and H Street NE with my wife and two kids. My family owns and shares one car and there are, admittedly, times when that’s the most convenient for us — especially when needing to get somewhere as a family. Most days, we don’t drive it. We understand the impacts personal vehicle use has on our environment and our health, but we acknowledge we also rely on the convenience it provides at times when we need it. While I don’t drive everyday, I usually do drive several times over the course of a week — so this will still be a challenge.

But I should note that I live in a transit-rich part of the city, with connections to most if not all forms of public transit — Capital Bikeshare (“CaBi”) stations, Metrobus, Metrorail, the Circulator, and even the DC Streetcar. I also own, and regularly use, my personal bike and have a membership to CaBi through my employment at the Council. I expect to use as many options as I can during the week.

Day 1: Monday, October 2

• Home to Union Station: 0.5-mile walk
• Union Station to Metro Center: 1.2 miles by Metrorail
• Metro Center to John A. Wilson Building (JAWB): 0.3 mile walk
• JAWB to Franklin Park: 0.5-mile CaBi e-bike ride
• Downtown to Home: 2.25-mile CaBi e-bike ride
• Home to Mt. Airy: 1.0-mile personal bike ride
• Mt. Airy to Home: 1.0-mile personal bike ride

I decided to kick off the National Week Without Driving challenge with one of my most familiar commutes into the John A. Wilson Building — a short walk to Union Station and then the Red Line to Metro Center. It took about 20 minutes door-to-door and the fare was $2.50. It was a gorgeous day and easy enough to get in, especially with roughly five-minute headways on the Red Line. Metro is back!

Later, I needed to attend an event in a different part of downtown. I found a CaBi e-bike at the station next to the office and with a quick ride, was there in no time. After the event, I needed to get home, and found another CaBi e-bike about two blocks away and jumped on for another ride. With my DC government CaBi discount, both rides were a combined $2.

After helping get the kids fed dinner, I needed to go to a community meeting, so I took my personal bike (not an e-bike). I had bike lanes for most of the way, but when I got to the site on North Capitol Street, there were no bike racks and not much in the way of bike infrastructure at all. I found a street signpost nearby and locked my bike up there.

Overall, this was an easy day of the Challenge. I live in a neighborhood with a lot of good transportation choices: Metro stations within walking distance, bike infrastructure connecting most places, and Capital Bikeshare stations within a few blocks. It dramatically increases the choice and ease I have to get around without a car. Moreover, today’s travel needs totaled $4.50, about the same as the cup of Compass Coffee I ordered with lunch. That’s not everyone’s reality though, and it’s all the more reason why we must prioritize investing in and expanding public transit options with greater equity in mind.

Total distance traveled: 6.75 miles

• Walking: 0.8 mile
• Biking: 4.75 miles
• Metro: 1.2 miles

Day 2: Tuesday, October 3

• Home to JAWB: 2 miles by Metrobus (D6)
• JAWB to Metro Center: 0.3-mile walk
• Metro Center to Union Station: 1.2 miles by Metrorail
• Union Station to Home: 0.5-mile walk
• Home to swim practice: 0.8-mile personal bike ride
• Swim practice to home: 0.8-mile personal bike ride

For the second day of the challenge, I chose the D6 Metrobus route to get to the Wilson Building. It was running about every 10 minutes, but I was cutting it close and had to sprint to catch up to a bus waiting at a red light and hopped right on. It was a full bus and took 30 minutes door-to-door.

Just like Metrorail yesterday, I’m lucky to have several bus lines near my home and office. I was able to walk the kids to school and get to the bus in less than 10 minutes. The D6 is a key route and you might recall efforts we’re making to save this link for riders.

This portion of the D6 didn’t have any bus priority lanes and we did get clogged a bit with rush hour congestion. But for those lines with bus priority lanes, enforcement is key and we need DDOT and WMATA to follow through with the Clear Lanes Project to enhance enforcement and keep buses moving.

After a full legislative session at the Wilson Building, I headed back home via Metrorail from Metro Center to Union Station and a quick walk from there. Later that evening, my daughter had swim team practice and we decided to bike over to Eastern Market. Most of the way had bike lanes, but I opted to take a route on some quieter residential streets to avoid evening traffic. Luckily, Rumsey Pool had bike racks right at the front door!

Total distance traveled: 5.6 miles

• Walking: 0.8 mile
• Biking: 1.6 miles
• Bus: 2 miles
• Metro: 1.2 miles

Day 3: Wednesday, October 4

• Home to Lincoln Park: 0.8-mile personal bike ride
• Lincoln Park to JAWB: 2.5-mile personal bike ride
• JAWB to Home: 1.7-mile personal bike ride
• Home to Little League practice: 1.2-mile personal bike ride
• Little league practice to home: 1.2-mile personal bike ride

Today happened to also be Walk and Roll to School Day! Ward 6 hosts DC’s biggest event each year and it was amazing to see all our schools participating! To get to Lincoln Park, I biked over. I had bike lanes for about half the ride. Seeing all the kids, teachers, and families excited to walk or bike to school today was amazing.

There’s an important message for this event though. Each year, we tell the kids to buckle those helmets and look both ways. Good advice, but the job of keeping them safe is the job of the adults. We cannot shift the responsibility to the children; each of us must step up. Following Walk and Roll to School Day, I headed by bike to the Wilson Building. Of course, when I got there, parking was a little bit tight…

Following the hearing and afternoon work, I headed home on my bike using the great Pennsylvania Avenue bike lanes. Of course, once I got to Louisiana Avenue, those lanes ended. It’s been years of indecision by the Architect of the Capitol (which has ultimate authority on this street) to complete the protected bike lanes from Pennsylvania Avenue to Union Station. At the pace of Congress these days, we’ll still be waiting awhile.

On Wednesday nights, my son has Little League practice where I’m the assistant coach. Normally, this is a trip we make by car to one of the local baseball fields and carry some of the gear for the practice or game. For this trip, I asked my neighbor if I could borrow their electric cargo bike! What a great and quick ride! And Everett had a lot of fun the entire way. After practice though, we discovered that the rear tire was flat. We’d picked up a nail or piece of metal along the way. With the flat, I couldn’t ride it home and it was going to be a long walk home with a heavy bike. But, I was able to walk the bike to a friend’s house a few blocks away and they helped me get the bike home. Flat tires don’t just impact you when you have four wheels, they can get you just as much on two — so the next day, we had to deal with the flat!

Total distance traveled: 7.4 miles

• Biking: 7.4 miles

Day 4: Thursday, October 5

• Commute to JAWB: 1.7 miles by Metrobus (X2) and 0.75 miles walking
• JAWB to Archives-Navy Memorial-Penn Quarter Metro Station: 0.5-mile CaBi bike ride
• Archives-Navy Memorial-Penn Quarter Metro Station to Southern Avenue Metro Station: 7 miles by Metrorail
• Southern Avenue Metro Station to ANC8E09: 2.0-mile CaBi
• ANC 8E09 to Anacostia Station: 3.5 miles by Metrobus
• Anacostia Metro Station to Archives Metro Station: 4 miles by Metrorail
• Archives Metro Station to home: 0.75-mile bike ride
• Home to 2023 WABA Awards Ceremony: 1.2-mile bike ride
• WABA Ceremony to home: 1.2-mile bike ride

On Day 4 of the challenge, I opted for the X2 to get downtown after school drop-off followed by a short walk to the Wilson Building. The bulb-outs at Franklin Park made a big difference as the bus stopped for dropping off and picking up. But as anyone who rides the X2 knows, it’s always a ride!

But later that day I had a meeting with ANC 8E09 on several transportation issues. Getting there highlighted the vast differences in the quality of transportation infrastructure across the city and the need to provide all communities with access to high-quality transit choices. Each trip this week has taken about 20 minutes tops. But I needed to budget one hour to get to the meeting even after mapping out all the routes.

In addition to the overall time, each route presented challenges: roads with no bike infrastructure, hard-to-find CaBi stations, sidewalks that abruptly end and force you into the road with cars, and longer waits for the bus. I got to my destination, but it took the full hour I allotted.

But it wasn’t all bad news! After getting off the Metro, I got the chance to take some of the trails along Oxon Run Park. It’s a beautiful space in Ward 8!

After my meeting, it was time to head back Downtown. I had a 15-minute wait for the A8 on speedy Southern Avenue, followed by a 20-minute ride to Anacostia Station, and then a 20-minute ride on the Green Line back to the office. Dealing with lengthy travel times like this for school, work, and appointments really adds up and makes our city less accessible and less equitable.

There are still some real transit deserts in the District, and we need to make sure communities everywhere in the District have more transportation options. There are also some really beautiful trails in Ward 8, but they don’t come together to form a real bike network. We can do so much better.

Later that evening, I joined the Washington Area Bicyclist Association for their annual award ceremony downtown, so, naturally, I jumped on my bike for that trip!

Total distance traveled: 22.85 miles

• Walking: 1.0 mile
• Biking: 5.65 miles
• Metrobus: 5.2 miles
• Metrorail: 11 miles

Day 5: Friday, October 6

• Home to Union Station: 0.5-mile walking
• Union Station to Metro Center: 1.2 miles Metrorail
• Metro Center to Union Station: 1.2 miles Metrorail
• Union Station to home: 0.5-mile walking

Today’s commute fell back to my normal patterns and was a repeat of Monday. I needed to be at the office in the Wilson Building for most of the day and Metro was the best decision. Again, living close to so many choices is something I’m very aware of and grateful for. And with ease, I can choose a variety of ways to meet most of my travel needs without jumping in the car. The Week Without Driving challenge has helped me think more intentionally about each of those choices and options I have, and especially reflecting on my Thursday trips, highlights how much more DC must do so that everyone has those choices.

Total distance traveled: 3.4 miles

• Walking: 1.0 mile
• Metrorail: 2.4 miles

Final tally: 32 trips

Mode	Number of trips	% of the total number of trips (rounded to the nearest whole number)
Walking	8	25%
Biking	15	47%
Bus	3	9%
Metro	6	19%
Total	32	100%

Takeaways

For starters, I was encouraged to see so many other people using Metro during my travels. Metro is a critical component of the District’s economic health, as workers rely on it to get in and out of the District for work and entertainment. As many of you know, Metro ridership – especially rail ridership – plummeted during the pandemic. But ridership is increasing and service is improving. I’m hopeful that, with the right leadership, Metro can emerge stronger than ever. It’s a transit option I regularly rely on, and I’m glad to see it working for so many other families.

Ultimately, this week was a reminder of how fortunate I am to have the transit options I do. Because of the investments made in public transit and bicycle infrastructure, I generally had little difficulty finding ways to get around that didn’t involve a personal vehicle – whether by bike, bus, or rail. Other areas of the city aren’t so lucky. Traveling to Southeast DC on Day 4 required multiple connections across various modes and still took an hour. While that’s easy enough to handle for a one-off occasion, that’s not ideal for an everyday commute within the city. So I’m leaving the Challenge with an even deeper appreciation for the transit options available to me, and a renewed sense of commitment to expanding District residents’ access to transit.